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Bern, I think it's fair to say that most belief systems are 'blinkered and naive', especially those that rely on doctrine (Atheism being less influenced by this than others). Also to say that Atheists blame physical factors for their own situations, this isn't such a bad thing. Although I despise the blame culture we have come to live in, there are in many cases reasons for people's state of existence. If a person's fortune, or misfortune (not luck) is attributed to a higher divine control then we have subscribe to the determinism and in some cases fatalism set out by that faith, if nothing else this outlook would expose religions as systems of control.
Main stream religions do set out a fairly good construct for morality, although fear is one of the incentives for subscription. I personally don't smack my kids because I would like them to do 'the right thing' because it is 'the right thing' not because they are fearful of me. (Although the 'right thing' follows the morals of the country we are raised in) Barry makes a good point that historically the morals set out by Christianity have shaped the moral code of our country, but many mainstream religions/faiths globally have the same codes. We could of course suggest that these are therefore divine, or accept that religion and belief are the obvious invention of man to rationalise the metaphysical questions that still stump us to this day...Voltaire and all that. Religion does a far better job of answering questions than science; science generally taking on problems it can resolve.
Without wanting to sit on the fence I'd describe myself as agnostic in my outlook, I appreciate that these things are about belief and I accept that although we are very clever as a species, we (especially me) 'know' very little. I would say I have very Christian values and have managed to post-rationalise most of them without religion in recent years. I do however have to agree with much of what Rick says about resulting acts of religion although I think wars could just as easily happen without such doctrine (many of which are subject to interpretation and entropy)
My main concern is how Religion is used! Recently my son was not offered a primary school place, based on the fact he does not attend church nor is christened. This was fairly dishonestly glazed over (although not hidden) in previous conversations. It was however prevalent in subsequent conversations once their intake quota had been filled. I know people that have had their children christened or attended church (purely superficially) to gain places in schools (much in the same way people attend to have nice wedding photos, aesthetically more desirable than outside registry offices) Our decision of school was defined by how the children in that school acted, and I appreciate that the school in question is as nice as it is by the presence of a faith. However it is clearly more important to blindly subscribe to a faith (or just lie) than it is to attempt to follow a righteous path. Exclusion in this way as far as I am concerned is just as bad as racism!
